


In your heart shall burn

by sass_bot



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fade Horror, Fade Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sass_bot/pseuds/sass_bot
Summary: In restless dreams, she is there -- in that place again -- staring into the abyss again. But this time, he's there with her, catching her before she plunges into its depths.
Relationships: Gereon Alexius/Female Inquisitor, Gereon Alexius/Female Lavellan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	In your heart shall burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TypingBosmer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/gifts).



It sounds like loneliness in this place.

Like wails of pain and misery – of love wrenched forcibly out of bleeding fingers and eyes forced open to watch as hope is defiled and desecrated.

It is deafening without even making a sound.

Sula’s hair is held back in a tight braid, but loose strands are blown into her face by the rancid breeze that drifts through this plane – the Fade. She shivers, but not quite because of the cold. Her legs propel her uphill because there’s nowhere else to go.

It looks like she’s stepping across the frosted hills of Haven, but she knows she’s not. There’s nothing in Haven now aside from an overpowering layer of soot, but here in the Fade, it is a picture-perfect replica of the village she stepped into when she first awoke as the “Herald of Andraste”

Some Herald… How many people did she allow to die here in Haven? How many siblings, parents, lovers, friends…?

The tragedy lingers in the air like a heavy blanket and her eyes cannot help but dart across the horizon, searching for the archdemon that swallowed the town whole.

She moves past a campfire long dead, wandering into Leliana’s tent, which is naked without her scouts scurrying in and out with their reports. Leliana herself is nowhere to be found – or is Sula the one who is nowhere, trudging clumsily through an open wound, soaking herself in the fresh blood of the Inquisition?

Not even a demon or a spirit to tempt or intimidate her – or at least, if such a spirit did exist, it needn’t bother with making itself present, as the disappointment and rage tearing into Sula’s heart is doing just fine all on its own.

She feels a flutter in her heart, like a candle flickering in the wind – once … twice … thrice … before being snuffed out completely, leaving her in a lightless abyss that stretches well past the limits of her gaze

This is not the first time she’s had this dream.

She lets her muscle memory lead her further uphill towards the Haven Chantry. Her boots meet the snow-covered dirt with a sickening wet squelch that sends a jolt of nausea from the very bottom of her belly to the top of her throat.

Just when she feels she should have entered the safety of Chantry; she takes one step further. She strains her eyes at the thick and imposing gloom before her, only to find it staring back at her – with a single pair of crimson eyes, glowing dimly.

She grasps absently at her staff, which should have been on her back.

The eyes drift through the darkness, dashing in a zig-zagging motion, and closing the gap between them. An emerald light begins to illuminate the figure. It is an elven shape, covered, not in skin, but in pure ink-like shadow, blending in with the blackness surrounding it. Its black hair floats about it like smoke rising from a flame. Upon its left hand, the mark of the breach pulsates in quiet seething resentment.

Sula’s hand desperately paws at her back, feeling the absence of her staff even more immensely. Her heart jitters frantically in her chest and her breathing grows rapid and uneven to match. “Stay back!” she tries to say, but an invisible hand grip her throat, squeezing her voice in place.

It smells like something is burning – _someone_ is burning. The scent slithers around her like a serpent circling its prey; it wraps around her ever more tightly until she can scarcely breathe.

The shadow’s hand reaches out, the mark upon it crackling audibly in the air.

Sula looks down at her own hand, bearing only a dull scar that branches out from the center of her palm like stark white roots, climbing up the skin of her arm. She raises her own arm as though attempting to close a tear in the veil. Her shoulders and neck stiffen in anticipation for the paralyzing feeling that always runs up her arm and through her body when she closes a Fade rift. But the feeling never comes.

Hands shut around each of Sula’s ankles. Her heart drops into the pit of her stomach, dangling by a single suffocating rope; she fears that should she attempt to move, the rope would snap and her heart would be as a broken toy, still and discarded at the bottom of her stomach. So, she continues staring into the crimson eyes, ignoring the sting of the nails that begin to dig into her ankles.

The moaning builds around her – piling layer upon layer of cacophonous noise, like corpses tossed upon the pyre. It’s rot and burnt flesh. Something begins to trickle down her foot. Is it blood? It feels too hot to be hers.

Then right before her eyes is a staff, intercepting the shadowy hand just as raging fury of the mark is inches away from her face. The chilly aura emanating from the surface of the solid obsidian staff makes her uncomfortably aware of the thick layer of sweat over her face, and offers her mild relief from the stifling heat that she had unknowingly become enveloped within.

“Inquisitor Lavellan.” The voice is raspy and soft – almost trembling. “You need to leave this place.”

Leave? Were it as easy as leaving, she would have done so long before the scalding hands managed to climb their way up to her thighs, grabbing at her flesh like hungry animals – long before the elf with beady red eyes began to breathe slow rotten breaths into her face.

“You’re in the Fade.”

“I know…” Sula says in reply. And Creators, her voice sounds so small.

Sula’s body moves away from the doppelganger. She vaguely registers the feeling of an arm, warm, but not hot, wrapping itself around her torso and pushing her until she’s no longer face-to face with the creature, but with a face that is distinctly human.

The mage the Inquisition had taken prisoner at Redcliffe now stands before her – Gereon Alexius, every fine line on his face dipped in shadow as a result of the green light that still shines in close proximity to them.

“How did you –” she begins to ask. Her eyes glance down at where there should have been hand marks, bleeding wounds, and pockmarked skin, but all she sees are her own untouched garments. It takes a moment for her body to realize that she is not in danger and for her nerves to adjust accordingly.

“I -I don’t know how I came to join you here…” Gereon answers a question she never asked. “Maker, I don’t even know if you’re real and my mind is just conjuring the image of you here…” He begins to ramble.

She allows a moment for her senses to take him in – to comprehend him; she inhales the essence of him like pure oxygen. It is a welcome change to the scent of decay and heat. Her hands rise to grab his own and feels his hands stiffen in hers. She makes a note to apologize to him for that when she’s awake – but Inquisition prisoner or not, without him, she would not be able to find her way out of this maze of her own creation.

She closes her eyes, steeling her resolve before then opening them again. When she does, no longer is she alone in the dark with a grim doppelganger, and the cloudy daylight of Haven fills her vision. She lets go of one of Gereon’s hands, keeping a tight grip on the other. He turns to her, an uncertain glint in his eye. Her face relaxes and she returns a lazy smile – the very same effortless mysterious smile he’s accustomed to seeing on her face.

Sula begins to close the distance between the pair of them and the sturdy wooden doors of the Chantry. With her free hand, she pushes the door open, only to be greeted by a burst of warm light like the first hints of morning sun hidden just beyond her eyelids.

“I won’t remember this when I wake up,” she tells him as she stands, facing the inside of the Chantry, her hand still squeezing his. “But I want to thank you, if you’re real.”

Before he can reply, Sula releases her grip on his hand and steps into a light beam, allowing it to consume her absolutely. And Gereon is left alone, the toes of his boots barely touching the threshold of the Chantry, unable to take his eyes off the spot where she once stood.


End file.
